Events for Sunday 27th October 2019

On This Day in History

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US Air Force Pilot shot down over Cuba

27th October 1962

Major Rudolf Anderson of the United States Air Force becomes the only direct human casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis when his U-2 reconnaissance airplane is shot down in Cuba by a Soviet-supplied SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missile.

Further Reading

For most British people the weekend of 27/28 October 1962 could so very easily have been their last weekend on earth. Yet, astonishingly, the fact that Britain's nuclear deterrent forces were set to such an unprecedented level of readiness was kept secret from the public. Thor nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles stood… Read more...